my thoughts: ATI Wonder USB2

[upshot]

I couldn't find it in the capture cards so I thought I'd share my thoughts here:

Pros: good mpeg2 captures, nice scheduling/tv programming interface, easy to use, portable.

Cons: weird install, needs a fast cpu (p4 2.4+??), may not jive with your graphics card/GPU, occasional audio lag mmc 9....

I picked one of these little units up for $99 when I had finally given up on Mainconcept PVR ($40 down the drain - does anyone want to buy my license cheap?) for quick and dirty direct to mpeg2 caps. This has become my PVR when I'm not that concerned about top quality (if I'm really concerned I use iuvcr to cap picvideo 3 and convert in procoder). After a quick and easy install on my cap machine (or HTPC -1.8P4,512m,onboard video), the video would not display and ati mmc seemed to be over-taxing the system... Some other weird things happened too including loss of usb sound card and enough to convince me that I needed to cut and run. So... on to plan 2... This is where the portability is nice! I routed a coax cable close to where I tend to use the laptop (3.2P4,512m,ATI mobility 9700(128)) and installed. The usb connection is no more annoying than the cat5 and power cord. Installation was a trip on this machine. After some research I think it was a conflict with Photoshop but, I tried all sorts of trouble shooting and mmc refused to load (https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248692). Now it's working fine.

I really like the gemstar grid add on. I don't understand why you cannot make global changes to the scheduling setup so that every time you make a right click record on the gemstar grid it will use the preset. I want mmc to shut down after the cap but, I have to edit each event to make that choice (it's always something!). All the wacky ways you can watch tv are interesting and given my high-resolution screen it can display ALL my basic cable channels (80 or so) in the thumbnail preview grid. mpeg2 caps are good quality (given mr. lordsmurf's suggestions) and ready to be clipped in womble and authored to dvd. For an hour show it takes 5-10 minutes to prep, author, and another 10-15 minutes to burn at 4x. Much better than encoding...

So.. other than the little pitfalls and given the right system I was pleasantly surprised with this little box. I believe it's using the theater 200 chip? I wasn't expecting much from a USB based product so it exceeded my preconceptions...

[Baldrick]

https://www.videohelp.com/newcapturecard.php
and I will add it after a few days.